Storage Utility Delivers Variable Capacity Storage Options for IBM Cloud Object Storage

IBM Storage Utility offerings deliver variable capacity storage options for IBM Cloud Object Storage

IBM Storage Utility offerings include IBM Cloud Object Storage models that enable variable capacity usage and billing.

These models offer a fixed total capacity, with an available base and variable usage subscription of that total capacity.

The built-in measurement tool in IBM Cloud Object Storage Manager 3105 (3401-M01 and 3403-M01) is used to monitor system capacity usage. It is used to report on capacity used beyond the base subscription capacity, referred to as variable usage. The variable capacity usage is billed on a quarterly basis, enabling to grow or shrink usage, and only pay for configured capacity.

The base system subscription is required to be facilitated through a three-year lease. The variable usage capacity will be billed through MES system upgrades for the capacity used.

These systems are available worldwide, but there are specific client and program differences by location.

Example
A customer has a qualified Cloud Object Storage Utility offering configuration including twelve Slicestors 2448 (3401-S01), each of which contains forty-eight 6TB HDDs, for a total system raw capacity of 3,456TB. The base subscription for such a system is 30% of the raw capacity of the system (1,036.8TB). During the months where the average daily usage is below 1,036.8TB, there is no additional billing.

The system will monitor daily provisioned capacity and will average those daily usage rates over the month term. The result is the average daily usage for the month.

If a customer uses 1,250TB, 3,199.5TB, and 1,799.2TB in three consecutive months, the built-in measurement tool in the Cloud Object Storage Manager will calculate the overage as follows (rounding to the nearest terabyte):

The capacity billed at the end of the quarter will be a total of 2,138TB – months in this example, which is the sum of the overage of each of the months. A quantity of 21 of feature number AJE3, 3 of feature number AJE2, and eight of feature number AJE1 will be ordered as MES against the Cloud Object Storage Manager 3105.

Key prerequisites: IBM Cloud Object Storage System software V3.12, or later, is required.

These certified hardware servers can be deployed in a single site or across multiple, geographically dispersed locations, connected by public or private networks.

Planned availability date: July 13, 2018